Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Happy McBirthday

To celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the Happy Meal in 1994, McDonald's ran a promotion where they offered 15 different vehicles that, once hooked together, would form a "birthday train". They really went all out, licensing a who's-who of favorite kids characters who had been featured in past Happy Meals. Ronald McDonald was featured, of course, but so were Snoopy, Barbie, E.T., the Muppet Babies, Sonic the Hedgehog, the Little Mermaid and others. Bugs and Daffy also got their own vehicle (and a quick cameo at the end of the commercial below). When pushed, Bugs would repeatedly smash Daffy's head between a pair of oversized cymbols. Anyway, here's the commercial for the promotion where Ronald and a bunch of familiar faces prepare to celebrate 15 years of greasy goodness.

There was also a Tiny Toons toy in that line. Somewhere on Youtube is an ad for that 15th anniversary line that features Babs and Buster Bunny, and they look like they were drawn my Jon McClenahan (http://www.mackhammer.com).

This was another toy collection designed by myself & my team at Simon Marketing. The Bugs/Daffy toy in particular was designed by Neal Sternecky, who did POGO, the recent TOM & JERRY cartoons, and LOTS of LOONEY TUNES comics for DC.